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In the United States the word has, to a certain extent, a different meaning, a brief in its English sense not being required, for the American attorney exercises all the functions distributed in England between barristers and solicitors. A lawyer sometimes prepares for his own use what is called a "trial brief" for use at the trial. This corresponds in all essential particulars with the "brief" prepared by the solicitor in England for the use of counsel. But the more distinctive use of the term in America is in the case of the brief "in error or appeal," before an appellate court. This is a written or printed document, varying according to circumstances, but embodying the argument on the question affected. Most of the appellate courts require the filing of printed briefs for the use of the court and opposing counsel at a time designated for each side before hearing. In the rules of the United States Supreme Court and circuit courts of appeals the brief is required to contain a concise statement of the case, a specification of errors relied on, including the substance of evidence, the admission or rejection of which is to be reviewed, or any extract from a charge excepted to, and an argument exhibiting clearly the points of law or fact to be discussed. This form of brief, it may be added, is also adopted for use at the trial in certain states of the Union which require printed briefs to be delivered to the court.
In English ecclesiastical law a brief meant letters patent issued out of chancery to churchwardens or other officers for the collection of money for church purposes. Such briefs were regulated by a statute of 1704, but are now obsolete, though they are still to be found named in one of the rubrics in the Communion service of the Book of Common Prayer.
The brief-bag, in which counsel's papers are carried to and from court, now forms an integral part of a barrister's outfit, but in the early part of the 19th century the possession of a brief-bag was strictly confined to those who had received one from a king's counsel. King's counsel were then few in number, were considered officers of the court, and had a salary of £40 a year, with a supply of paper, pens and purple bags. These bags they distributed among rising juniors of their acquaintance, whose bundles of briefs were getting inconveniently large to be carried in their hands. These perquisites were abolished in 1830. English brief-bags are now either blue or red. Blue bags are those with which barristers provide themselves when first called, and it is a breach of etiquette to let this bag be visible in court. The only brief-bag allowed to be placed on the desks is the red bag, which by English legal etiquette is given by a leading counsel to a junior who has been useful to him in some important case.
BRIEG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, on the left bank of the Oder, and on the Breslau and Beuthen railway, 27 m. S.E. of the former city. Pop. (1900) 24,090. It has a castle (the residence of the old counts of Brieg), a lunatic asylum, a gymnasium with a good library, several churches and hospitals, and a theatre. Its fortifications were destroyed by the French in 1807, and are now replaced by beautiful promenades. Brieg carries on a considerable trade, its chief manufactures being linen, embroideries, cotton and woollen goods, ribbons, leather, machinery, hats, pasteboard and cigars. Important cattle-markets are held here. Brieg, or, as it is called in early documents, Civitas Altae Ripae, obtained municipal rights in 1250 from Duke Henry III. of Breslau, and was fortified in 1297; its name is derived from the Polish Brzeg (shore). Burned by the Hussites in 1428, the town was soon afterwards rebuilt, and in 1595 it was again fortified by Joachim Frederick, duke of Brieg. In the Thirty Years' War it suffered greatly; in that of the Austrian succession it was heavily bombarded by the Prussian forces; and in 1807 it was captured by the French and Bavarians. From 1311 to 1675 Brieg was the capital of an independent line of dukes, a cadet branch of the Polish dukes of Lower Silesia, by one of whom the castle was built in 1341. In 1537 Frederick II., duke of Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau, concluded with Joachim II., elector of Brandenburg, a treaty according to which his duchy was to pass to the house of Brandenburg in the event of the extinction of his line. On the death of George William the
